Living the Jesus Priorities: PRAY

Matthew 6:5-15
5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 7 "When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 "Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Habits to Form:

1. Pray Alone--we must remember to do our introspection (self-examination) before we are ready to come to God in prayer. This is the place of intimacy with God.
2. Pray Persistently--not for our wants, but for the will of God and for the Spirit to fill us and guide us.
3. Pray in the Presence of Others--not in the context of worship, but in the circumstances and situations we find ourselves in. As we pray with others, we share a part of our faith and our beliefs about God and in so doing, invite others to believe and have faith.
4. Pray Simply--as in the prayer that Jesus taught:

Our Father: use whatever name is intimate and personal for you

Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name: we look up to offer praise and remembering who God is, we are led naturally to humility as we approach God.

Thy kingdom (realm) come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven: we are not telling God what we want to accomplish but we are learning what God wants us to accomplish.

Give us this day our daily bread: remember that bread was a staple, an essential for Jesus. Ask for your essentials...not your wants...but the essentials of your faith and life, i.e. the capacity to love as God has loved us, understanding God's will, to be part of that will.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors: critical for our spiritual well being is to acknowledge our shortcomings, our sins. If we never verbalize that we have committed sins in thought, word, or deed, we can decieve ourselves into believing that we have not sinned. But "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: call your temptations by name and believe in God to strengthen you and to provide support to fight them.

Reflection Questions:

1. Where is your "mountain" for being alone with God?
2. How can you protect time for prayer in your daily routine?
3. How can you cultivate ongoing opportunities to pray with others?
4. What are some ways you can keep your prayer life simple?
5. In prayer, how much are you listening?

Pastor Eva

More thoughts on forgiving, forgetting and love

I personally separate forgiveness and forgetting by remembering that Jesus never told us to forget. Forgiveness means for me that I will not hold the action against the person. It does not mean that I will forget it, it only means I will try not to bring the past into the present moment when I am interacting with that person. For example, when a person broke into the church when I was pastor at Dundalk Church of the Brethren, and we found him still asleep in the building, we still called the police. We still went to court and asked that damages be paid. But if he were to walk into the building again on a Sunday morning, I would have expected peo ple to welcome him as a fellow worshipper, not tell him to go away or that we didn’t want him because of a past deed. I would never forget he broke in, and I wouldn’t trust him to lock up the building—or even give him a key—until he had earned that trust back. We are not expected to roll over and play dead.

Eva


A further response:
You make a good case for forgiving vs. forgetting, but I think it depends on the case and the person. My first impulse, always, is to forgive. But then the action keeps coming up or seeping in and it seems like, more often than not, I only manage to set myself up for more punishment. OR, I want to forgive (even SAY that I do) but find myself super-sensitive to the actions of the 'trespasser' -- I seem to think that they are only looking for ways to get over on me. And then when they do I feel like such a schmuck!

Response to: Love

Below are the thoughts of someone who wrote to me. They agreed for me to post their response but without their name...

Pastor Eva

I believe that, as humans, it is impossible to achieve complete forgiveness. I try as hard as anyone I know, but I don't know how to separate the forgiving from the forgetting...if I forget, then I'm guilty of losing the lesson, right?

Living the Jesus Priorities: Love!

LOVE: Read these scriptures and reflect....

Matthew 7:12
"In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets."

Matthew 22:35-40
35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" 37 He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' [Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, the beginning of the Shema, a prayer offered by our Jewish sisters and brothers as they enter and leave their homes and rise in the morning and sleep at night] 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' [Jesus is quoting from Leviticus 19:18] 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Habits to develop:
1. Show mercy!

• "Jesus offers mercy because of who GOD is." [from The Jesus Priorities]
• "The ability to treat others with mercy regardless of how they treat us requires that our actions flow from principles, not circumstance...we were not designed in the image of God to be reactive. We don't have to let circumstance or emotions determine our responses." [from The Jesus Priorities]

2. Forgive without limits!

• "No act lies beyond forgiveness." [from The Jesus Priorities]
• examine the story of the woman who washed Jesus' feet (Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; Luke 7:36-50; John 12:1-8)
• Jesus forgave sins and affirmed faith. We are called to do the same. (Matthew 16:19; 18:18)

3. Love others as God loves!

• Matthew 7:12 (see above)
• Read the story in Matthew 25:31-46.
• "The lesson of this story cannot be misinterpreted. Jesus' message is twofold: (1) all humans are worthy of and in need of God's love; and (2) all humans are accountable for offering God's love to others." [from The Jesus Priorities]
• Love is the fundamental act God seeks from our freedom to choose.

Questions for reflection:

1. Who needs your mercy?
2. How have you been shown mercy?
3. Who is the one person in your life with whom you would most like to be reconciled?
4. How are you called to love as God loves? How are you called to be an extension of God's love?

Reflections on Healing

I am amazed at how difficult it is to heal ourselves. I am being reminded of my own words by many people these days as I look forward to seeing a surgeon. I feel like I need to assure that I am present for Easter...for my partner...for court hearings...for people in all kinds of places for all kinds of reasons...but how then do we--do I allow God to be in control of the healing in my life. This week, we have all been slowed down a bit because of the weather. It has been a time of reflection for me. I go to the doctor this week for my right elbow...it is swollen. Another time, I will need to go for a pap smear...those wonderful annual checkups...then it will be to a surgeon for the gall bladder...

Today someone sent a wonderful reading to me about mayonaise jars and coffee. It is a story about a teacher who fills a mayonnaise jar with golf balls and asks if it is full. The class says yes! Then the teacher takes pebbles and shakes them down into the jar and again asks the class if the jar is full...and the class says yes! Then the teacher takes sand and shakes it in among the pebbles and the golf balls and the teacher asks one more time, "Now is it full?" And the class again says, "Yes!" Then the teacher takes 2 cups of coffee and pours them in. Is that how we continue to cram things into our lives? The teacher reminds the students that if they had begun with the little, mundane things we do (the grains of sand), there would be no room for the important things like (friends, family, and God). But there should always be room for a cup or two of coffee (or tea) with people who are important.

I am glad for my own healing for that reminder in my life today.
Pastor Eva

Practices for the First Essential Habit: Heal

1. Stay deeply connected to compassion
2. Say yes to strangers
3. Do what is within our power to do
4. See with the heart

How do you intentionally act with compassion?

How can you say yes to strangers?

Does somebody near you, or on the edges of your life, need compassion: what is within your power to do?

Think about someone you may have judged harshly. If you look again with your eyes and your heart, what do you see?